The Narrative Image

I walked into a valley of time. pages of time written by volcanoes a table of contents set down so long ago I would have thought it was forever ice, rain, sun and air – like a plague of mice nibble at the pages precious stories preserved in earth washed away forever heirs to life we who still exist winding through an intricate unbroken plot always at the right place at the right time with the right skills a churning molten core birth pains a hundred miles westward earth breathes, breathes - ash into the sky time and again Technicolor vomit or the afterbirth of a mother’s creation Earth opens herself we glimpse long hidden words there is revelation here the ancient sun peers over a hill illuminates the past “I remember you”, it says “when you were younger” “you look different now” As for man, his days are like grass: He flourishes like a flower of the field; For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, And its place knows it no more.* *Psalms 103: 15-16 standing on a cusp of time forwa...

“We think our camera is broken and are wondering if we should take it back.” said a colleague at work, describing her family’s new camera. “What’s making you think it’s broken? I asked. “Almost all the pictures are blurry,” she said. I immediately suspect camera motion and ask a few diagnostic questions. “Are you using the camera indoors or outdoors? Are you zooming in for tight close-ups? Are you taking action photos or staged portraits” Basically, she answers, “Yes.” “It’s probably camera-shake.” I offer. “But it has image stabilization! Do you think you could take a look at it?” I’m no expert, but in this situation, given that we both flounder at the low end of the clueless scale, I figured two heads would be better than one. I agreed to take a look at the camera, the camera manual, and some examples of the problem photos. Figure 1 F3.2 Shutter Speed 1/4 ISO 200 A presumably stationary Christmas ornament. This is an example of motion blur caused by camera movement. The Panasonic Lum...

I should probably begin by telling you that about the only plant I’ve ever managed to successfully grow was a Chia Pet, so you can imagine that gardens and gardening are somewhat of an impenetrable mystery to me. On the left is an example of Mt. Hood National Wilderness (From the Ramona Falls trail. See http://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2007/05/ramona-falls-trail-super-sized-part-two.html ). On the right is an example of Portland Oregon’s Japanese Garden. While I personally find both scenes beautiful, there are several aspects about the garden scene that show evidence of human tinkering. Some of the obvious signs are a human constructed concrete artifact, groomed bushes and trees, and a preponderance of plant varieties seemingly chosen for aesthetic purposes. Just for the purpose of comparison, this corn is an example of a garden designed for the efficient production of a food crop. Curiously, I find this scene aesthetically pleasing also, but did not find any growing at the Japan...

This handprint appears above a depiction of a spotted pony that was painted in a gallery of a cave at the end of the last ice age some fifteen thousand years ago. Scholars point out that the gallery was far away from any living quarters and difficult to get to and therefore posit some religious – perhaps magical – significance to the artwork. It is one of the first recorded instances of a hominid making a characteristic gesture across time – a message that cries, “I was here. Remember me.” Later, in one of the first super civilizations, the Egyptians went to great lengths to have their respective deity remember them each as specific individuals. Of course, the more resources one had, the greater the lengths attained… Who will remember me? When you face that question, it becomes easy to see the selling points for religion as it exists today. What peasant, toiling in the mud of the fields during a short brutish life wouldn’t want to be re-united with God and fam...